Never Seen
by Howl
Summary: War is peace, war is chaos, war is logic, war is illogic. What is war? A question that bothers Harry more than Voldemort. When he gets his answer, from the most unexpected person, will he be satisfied?
1. What is War

_Disclaimer: Don't Own, Don't Sue. _

_Summary: One question, one answer, it can lead to one circle of requests. _

_Chapter one: War?_

"What is war anyway?"

Those words, simple as they were, echoed through Harry Potter's head like a badly played broken record. His Uncle had said them, not in the way Harry heard them, for the man had added a few colorful words and a lot of 'freaks' to them. In a generalized statement, his question was "What is war to you freaks anyway? You probably know nothing of war, not freaks like that, you, anyway."

Outside in the darkening night of the longest day of the year rain sleeted down like broken weaves of a stringy quilt. Sighing, the scarred boy pressed his forehead against the glass, allowing his breath to fog up and down slightly, and the cold touch of bitter glass to grapple his forehead, his scar.

The conversation he had just held with his family, one out of necessity, not choice, was one Harry never thought would haunt him so. In a world of wizards, where magic was the key component to almost all, how was it that a few muggles, muggles that hated magic with a passion no less, could speak the few words to befuddle a wizard so much? He knew, in the front of his mind, that there were probably written texts somewhere that only his best friend Hermione could find, defining war in the proper essence.

Yet, somehow that wasn't good enough.

What was war?

His demented cousin, Dudley, had said it was "annihilation." A way of destroying all those that don't believe in the same ideas but want their idea to be the only one. Odd how close to home the boy touched. Voldemort and Dumbledore. The two opposing sides. One wanting what the other despised. Annihilation was chess, take out all the other person's pieces, and you'll be sure to win.

Uncle Vernon hadn't helped much when his son said annihilation. He cracked an ugly smile, one to rival that of Voldemort's himself, and said that possibly a war among wizards was a way of doing a complete genocide.

"Obviously if you freaks are always hiding, and I imagine," shudder, "you have ways of keeping things…secret," three shudders, "that there'd be no way to kill you off. Which is what you freaks need. Plaguing and using _our_ world like a playing ground." All this time, all these years of harboring a wizard in their home, was just somehow not enough to convince Uncle Vernon of the purity behind magic, and even that it was real. "So what better way to get rid of all of you then to turn you on yourselves. Only way to be rid of you. What do you know about war anyway? What is war to you freaks..."

Harry thumped his head against the glass somewhat. Damnit, he thought, it just didn't make sense. Like everyone's opinion of war was different, and it was only theirs that matter. War equaled violence. War equaled peace. War equaled genocide. War equaled war. No way of escaping the confusion.

"_Why does it matter?"_ Hermione had asked over a letter. _"War is war, Harry, and it's better to be on the right side than the wrong." _

"_Mate, c'mon,"_ Ron had scribbled. _"You're worried about trivial things, really. War? Why ask what war is? Does it matter? Best be on the winning side rather than the losing in my opinion, and to get that you can't question war, just have to go along."_

Funny, Harry mused, his two best friends had said exactly the same thing except for one major difference. Ron said it was better to be on the winning side, Hermione said it was better to be on the right side. Were they the same?

"See Dumbledore!" Harry suddenly snarled to the glass of the window that reflected his appearance of a messy haired boy. "This is what you get!" he stepped back and thrust out his arms. "When you send me to live in the darkness of summer at my boring relatives house. You get me," he lowered his voice, as if conspiring. "Questioning."

Swearing quietly, he dropped his arms to his sides, and fell backwards onto his bed. The ceiling greeted him with a dull rush of balanced cream white, filling a whole void of confusion, frustration, and curiosity with its bleakness. As if that was its output for life. Dull.

It wasn't really a matter of killing anyone, or the question 'what do you do when you know you have to kill someone?' No, it was different now. It was 'what do you do when you know someone shouldn't be alive?' War was like that in a way, right? Simple, yet complex, questions turned into tricky, impossible questions. People turned, morals changed, philosophies alerted slightly or drastically.

Shaking his head, Harry rolled over and dug his face into a pillow. "They just don't understand magic, they're muggles. It's different. Isn't it?" he didn't wait for the pillow to respond before flipping back other. "What is war to you freaks anyway?" his Uncle's words sound foreign and dangerous on his tongue.

Briefly closing his eyes, he opened them up to the cream ceiling one more time.

"Why?" he said softly. "Isn't it same thing? People fighting peoples'…other ideas?" Sighing for the umpteenth time that night, Harry closed his eyes one last time, and muttering something unintelligible beneath his breath, he rolled over to fall into a restless slumber.

_

* * *

__Hogwarts—_

"Is there a difference between life and death? When you live, you live to die, but when you die, you die to live. Is the only difference in the change of the words, for if it is, than I'd just prefer to remain in the former for the time being. Maybe till three o'clock…" Snape mused over his cup of tea as he sat in the brightly bathed office of the Headmaster.

"Why, Severus, you're your happy self," Albus Dumbledore chuckled. "Been a long time since you've questioned life…something happened with Riddle?"

"He killed some more muggles for sport," the hooked nose man winced slightly at the memory. "One of them, a man, sturdy, said some last words that I think even bothered The Dark Lord." Dumbledore leaned forward, intrigued. Nothing bothered Riddle other than he, himself, Dumbledore.

"What did he say?" Dumbledore finally sighed upon realizing that Snape was going to hold out on telling him as his only form of secure taunt that he could play without being disrespectful.

"You've only got a hundred years to live," Snape informed with a strained voice. Why did that bother him? He didn't know. Wizards lives for hundreds of years, but the muggle's voice, his surety, his tone, his eyes…it was like dooming them to a life of mortality. Something Snape embraced, yet something Voldemort hid from.

"Odd words," Dumbledore stated quietly as he sat down, his fingers folding onto one another as he sat back. "Mortality is a fickle thing," the old wizard stated quickly, as if reading Snape's mind. "No one really wants to die, but they know they will, so they can only dream of immortality as their only escape from death. The thing is, however, it won't happen. It's just a dream."

"Dreams are what make people live," Snape pointed out, horribly to out of context to his usual demeanor. But dreams were something his sister used to speak of, something…of a memory he liked to cling to.

"Yes, that they are," the old man bowed his bearded head in acknowledgement. Then, suddenly, there was a crack and a wrinkle house elf appeared with over-bright eyes and a long, pointy nose. One long enough, Snape mused, to rival Cyrano de Bergerac's.

Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling, leaned over and allowed the house elf to whisper quietly in his ear, though Snape was wondering how the elf's nose didn't point the respectable old man in the ear. Finally, Albus arose, nodded at the house elf, and turned his attention back onto his guest. Though neither male failed to miss the house elf's glare in Snape's general direction.

"Why do the hose elves hate me so?" Snape asked the Headmaster, who let a small smile break his bearded cheeks.

"Why, I think possibly, it's because every time they try to help you by putting an extra pillow beneath your head, or a blanket atop you body, or give you some form of hot tea when you, yourself, fail to realize you're illness…it just tends to all end up on the floor." The man shook his head sadly but the twinkle and the smile never left. "You put them in right fit, you know that, when you do that."

Snape just snarled something under his breath that Dumbledore, if he heard, chose to not acknowledge. "What do you want me to do Albus?" Snape finally, grudgingly, sighed.

"Why, dear boy, do you think I want you do anything?" the old man never lost his knowing twinkle.

"Mainly because you have yet to bring up the schedule for the coming school year late, clearly indicating that that meeting is for another time, and when our eyes meet you're the first to advert them. Plus," Snape glared slightly, a bit beyond the Headmaster, but in the proximity. "You're left eye twitches when you have a request that you want to get out in the open but refuse to do so until the opportune time."

The old man chuckled softly, gently rubbing his left eye with a wrinkled old hand. "My, my, you might just spend too much time doing this job of yours," he was clearly indicating spying.

"Or just with you," Snape mumbled quietly beneath his breath.

"Possibly," Dumbledore agreed. "However, I'm sure your observations will have made Sherlock Holmes proud…"

"You read too many muggle books."

"Hmm…I guess you assumed correctly, my dear boy, I do have a request." There was a pause. A pregnant one, a sort of shift in the taunting. Dumbledore was now holding out on Snape, rather than the other way round. The only problem was Snape was rather fond of keeping requests away from his ears for as long as he possibly could.

"Nice weather we're having," Snape snarled in a voice that said he could give a damn about the weather. He was just proving a point.

"You win," Albus finally sighed. "You'll not be fond of the request, Severus, but at the time I do believe you're the only adequate enough to do so. Possibly Alaster Moody—but no, I trust you more for this." Pride. The old man was going with trust, which gave Severus this odd sense of honor. Then again, he also knew that Dumbledore was just working him up.

He didn't mind though. Flattery wasn't horrible for the soul, now was it?

Then the obvious hit him, the blunt truth of the subtleties, the flattery, the edging around the topic at hand.

Harry bloody Potter.

"No," Snape stood up instantly, the chair scraping out from beneath his legs. "I refuse. I won't do anything for that brat ever again."

"It's not that," Dumbledore protested lazily. "I just want you to tutor him." Somehow that incensed Snape even more than before.

"Tell me Albus," he dug his palms onto the old man's desk, leaning forward with a menace to his tone. Not toward the elder though, but to the boy, the suggestion, in general. "Why should the golden child get special treatment? It'll teach him nothing of life or of consequences. If he failed to get into a class, especially mine, than it's his own damn fault and I refuse to give him any ease way."

"That's good to hear," Albus nodded. "Harry's never been given ease way on his classes, what he gets is what he earns. I do not mean for you to teach him in something to deal with school." Snape straightened up, startled.

Rarely did a man of Snape's nature get startled, but Dumbledore's words had done just that. He drew back a step and sat down once again, studying the old wizard before him with a hint of intrigue that was quietly hidden behind indifference.

"Yes?" he drawled slowly. Though he had a good idea in mind of what this 'tutoring' required. Best to hear the old man out though, it tended to make him happy.

A/N: R&R PLEASE


	2. What requests peace

_Disclaimer: Don't Own, Don't Sue. _

_Chapter Two: Answer_

He was so naïve.

He thought nothing of the stranger next to him, sitting there as if the world were at ease with him, and he with it. Did he have no vigilance? No perspective? No distrust? Did he know nothing of the Wizarding world? Did he not know that Glamour Charms were common, polyjuce potion easy to a skilled hand?

Did he not know he was the most wanted boy by the Dark Lord himself?

He was so naïve.

The park was calm, empty expect the straddling summer leaves that wanted to litter a chaos upon the ground, dropping from the tree, but unable to break the connection. The swings, broken and hanging down in disgrace, swayed in the gentle breeze. Sorrowful that no soul was to swing on them for a long time.

He found them far too interesting for his tastes.

He sat there, arms spread out lazily against the wooden bench, fighting the essence of temptations so well that he ought to be acknowledged for that, nothing else. His right foot was resting atop his left knee, his body reclined in a relaxed state, his mind fighting for such a realm.

Temptation was the Devil. Especially when it was so easy, when the thing was just within grasp, but that would mean you failed. He wasn't there to succumb to the temptation; then again he never thought he would be presented with such an opening.

He had just been there to watch.

The boy sat at the base of the tree, lounged among the roots, his wild black hair scraping his forehead in the breeze. His emerald green eyes were shut tight, unseeing to the world around him, trusting of the easing peace the park created. He was entrapped within thoughts, oblivious to what sat not far away.

Upon a bench, watching his every movement.

He was the first one there, planning an easy day of prowling and watching, and then the boy arrived, barely acknowledged him, and sat down upon the roots of the trees, falling into his thoughts.

He was so naïve.

He thought he was so safe, but he hardly was. Not with the person that sat not five feet away, fighting temptation, and almost losing a battle he never thought he would have. Never, ever.

Suddenly a gusting laugh broke the world, startling both of them. The boy craned around, his neck bending darkly as he watched a whale of a boy walk into the park, his 'friends' trailing him. He was a thing of a boy. Grotesque with a body that bubbled and jumbled as he walked, sweat a permanent feature upon his forehead and underarms.

His clothing was slickly tight, but he wore enough of the fabric to cover any unpleasant rolls. His piggy eyes bulged out, his teeth bearing in a stained yellow of too many cigarettes, and for such an early hour he already reeked of the prudent smell of alcohol.

The man on the bench couldn't help but curl his nose upward, a tight disgust feeling his sensitive nostrils. Even the boy was affected, but he should no sign of being so as he turned back to his thoughts at the base of the tree. Briefly his eyes lingered upon the man on the bench, watching him with sudden interest, but just as soon as it came, it diminished.

He laughed inwardly. He thinks me a muggle, he thought, I really ought to be offended. But he wasn't.

"Oy, look who it is," the whale child whaled, ironically enough, in a piggish snort of a voice that couldn't cause decent me to lose their meals. He waddled a bit, eager, as he turned his greedy thirst on the boy at the base of the tree. "The little, wittle, Potter boy, or my so-called cousin, personally I don't believe it."

Cousin, the man drawled in his head. Interesting. He gave no flattery to life, let alone living flesh and blood of a Potter relative.

"What's the matter?" the boy kept taunting while his lackeys chortled in the background. They probably didn't understand, a bit like Crabbe and Goyle. Junior and Senior. "Still thinkingof war?" a piggish smile formed his lips. "Well I told you what it was Potter," his tone had dropped into an oddly serious sneer. "It's annihilation. Best accept that."

So he was questioning war…the man shifted a bit. That made sense—considering what was going on. He glanced at the green-eyed boy and smirked. He had to give the boy that, he could be rightfully clever in his ways of dealing with his cousin.

"Go away Dudley," the boy finally snarled as the whale loomed up to him. "Or I shall annihilate you." So serious was his voice that the whale pales, eyes bulging out disgustingly, and he retreated several steps back.

"Come on Big D, let's go," one of his lackeys attempted, barely touching the boy's sleeve to pull him away. Dudley willingly succumbed.

Silence befell the park once they were gone. The bench man was more then just intrigued. No longer did he have to fight temptation. No, he wanted to know more, and this was the best way.

His shifted in his seat, eyes falling upon the boy, willing him to open his green eyes and look at him. Straight in the eye. Not to see him for whom he really was, though that would be amusing.

The boy wanted to know about war? Then he shall tell him about War.

Clearing his throat in a far too muggle-like fashion, he gathered the boy's attention, undaunted by the bright green eyes that shined at him suddenly from behind the jet-black bangs. He creased a smirk and settled back onto his bench chair, allowing the black leather of his jacket to form his arm.

"Want to know about war then?" he drawled out slowly, his eyes fixated upon the swing. He waited for a response. There wasn't one. Maybe the boy wasn't as naïve as he thought. He glanced to the side; the boy had closed his eyes again.

Oh, he was.

"Don't understand it do you?" he continued, his voice foreign sounding to his ears. Otherwise it would be too obvious. "Should make perfect sense, right? Fight for what's right, fight for what's wrong. That doesn't tell you what war is…though you cousin is drastically wrong. Annihilation is only a factor, not the point."

His eyes were still closed but he had tilted his head slightly, obviously listening. The man on the bench grinned.

"Though annihilation doesn't mean death," he smirked as a frown formed the green-eyed boy's lips. "It means just getting rid of a lot of things." The green eyes were open now, boring into the side of his head. He couldn't look over again lest their eyes met.

Temptation was crawling back…but later—maybe.

"If you were given a request in return for a nice bed…what would you request? Anything in the world, the world itself at your hands, what would you take? It's a balance, to give something, something must be given. Though what's given in return is often bigger then what is received. An awkward balance, but a balance." He paused, absorbing the peacefulness of the world.

Continuing, he ran rumbling fingers over the wooden bar of the bench. "One time a man was given such a request, a simple request in the least. Drawn to the life of violence, lusting for blood and gore, his only dream was witnessing, hosting in a sense, a way. His own war. That was his request, a trying request, a simple one nonetheless with consequences that could be lusterless to his cause. But triumphs that were lustful to his cause.

"So he made the request. 'Give me my own war.' And it was granted. The next day, the first day of the day he was to have a war, he walked outside, breathing in the fresh air, hoping to already smell the stench of blood. He wasn't satisfied but he would come, he was sure.

"Fighting. Violence. Blood. Screams. Death. Gun fire. Violence. Violence. The grin could barely be suppressed as he trotted into town. When he reached the place, however, he stopped dead in shock, horror, disgust. No fighting, no violence, no blood, no death, no anything. Anything but peace. The man with beady brown eyes, a pudgy face, scrambled down the street in horrified disbelief. He was sweating profusely but he didn't seem to notice as he eyes darted around, taking in all the calm, peacefulness of the town.

"He was plainly disgusted by it and let this be known by abruptly yowling in anger and shoving an old man that walked by. There was a distinct crack as the old man's hip broke and a silence befell the street. The boy hissed in his breath…would this be the start of the request for the war?

No.

"Suddenly the old man started to laugh, and two burly men stepped forward and heaved him up. "Didn't like that hip much anyway. Good day sir." The old man cried out as he was traveled off, toward the hospital, eyes barely tinted with watery tears." The man paused, realizing that as he spoke, his tale was becoming more and more story-like.

"Everyone went back to life after that," he continued finally. The boy was entrapped within his tale; nothing else mattered but his words. "Nothing had happened. He had broken an old man's hip, hadn't bothered to do anything, and then nothing had happened.

This peace was horrifying.

"He had to break it. Diving forward, he made a trail of chaos in the street, shoving, slamming any and all around. He even so much as kicked a little girl in the stomach and yet nothing happened."The he spotted the mayor before the clock tower, where he was taking a usual walk around the town, and greeting the people he loved and protected. When the mayor spotted to the pudgy man he waved a merry hand but never expected the reply he'd get."

A prolonged pause filled the air as the man chose his next words slowly.

"The pudgy man had smashed his beefy fist into the man's face, instantly breaking the nose. He turned around, waiting for the outrage, the way he could ruin the peace. But nothing happened.

"The mayor wheezed a few unheard jokes up from under his bloody hand and allowed himself to be led away from the crowd that was forming with smiles, sincere ones. They merely greeted the man and told him that it was a nice punch.

"'What do you call this?' he shouted to no one in the crowd. He was staring upward, as if at God, but that wasn't who he was addressing. "This isn't a war! I requested a war! I wanted a war and what do you give me instead? PEACE! This isn't a war! I wanted a war!"

"People in the crowd looked at him bemusedly and nodded about war being an oddly sweet thing for him to request. He ignored them all, looking upward to whoever he had made the request of, before collapsing onto the ground, shaking.

"Too much peace. He wanted a war, not peace. Peace…the word shuddered through him and around him like the grasp of Death's wiry hand. He wanted a war…he couldn't break the peace for his war. He had wanted a war, his thirst, his lust, for blood. His deranged harboring of the thing itself spewing in outrage at the sign of peace." He was lost in his own memories, his mind whirling up the thoughts of the tale, completely in trapped with dazed eyes.

"'I gave you a war,' the voice, toneless, and the shaking man. 'You asked for your own war and I gave you one. What better is a war to a man that loves violence then the direct opposite? I gave you a war, sir, a war of peace against your very soul.'"

"Against your very soul?" the boy echoed, those words haunting. The man on the bench nodded, understanding his feeling.

"He had one request, that was all, and he requested his doom. His very doom for a war." He turned to the boy, eyes resting on the lightening bolt scar on his forehead instead of the green eyes.

Ah, the temptation.

"There are other forms of war," the man said. "Not all is violence. So what is war?" the boy leaned forward keenly. "It's whatever you request it to be."

He understood that statement, the boy had. He was wiser then he gave off the appearance of being. He was still naïve, but that didn't matter nonetheless. He had a mind, if he attempted it appeared.

Temptation.

He had stood up, dusting off his over-baggy pants, his floppy shirt floating wildly about his skinny arms. "Thank you," the boy nodded. "I needed to hear that."

"There's a lot you need to hear Potter," he couldn't resist. Instantly the boy stiffened, eyes widening, stepping back slightly in fear, his fingers etching closely to his pocket. His wand.

Stretching as he stood up, the man studied the boy closely. Oh the temptation. It wasn't almost too much now. How could he resist. So close at hand, his number one enemy, the boy on top of his hit list.

"W-who?" the boy stuttered, gathering a better defense stance, studying the man, disbelief clawing his stomach. How could he have been so oblivious!

"Why Potter," the man smirked as he pulled out his wand. "I'm your best pal." With that he muttered a foreign Latin word and his whole appearance changed, the polyjuice he had been wearing, mixed with the strong Glamour collapsing.

Cold. Harry fell cold. Numb with horror. Shocked in a realm of disbelief so deep that he felt more then inadequate. How the hell had he been so stupid!

Before him the appearance of the long-haired, olive skinned man disappeared, collapsed in pale, sunken cheeks, with blood red eyes that haunted his very nightmares. His scar pricked, but not a lot. Not like it should've been. The man loomed up a few inches and his nose, once flat, seemed to finally be building itself up, into a normal one, though it never would be. His bald head glinted far too healthily in the sun of the park and his pale skin flashed lighter then ghost's skin.

Lord Voldemort. Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Harry collapsed back against the tree, horrified. All thoughts of getting a bind and escaping diminishing with the numbed essence that swarmed his body. He couldn't move and he wouldn't have been surprised if he had suddenly started to drool through his sagging mouth of horror, or his feared heart-beat could be heard around the neighborhood.

"Why, Potter, no invitation to tea?" the man mocked.

"How…possible…Dumbledore…scar…" the boy fumbled over his words as the man stepped forward, eyes flashing under the sun.

"Wards are weaker the farther away you are from home," Tom Riddle, Voldemort, winked darkly. "I know more about your scar then you think, I can control how well you feel me. I just like your writhing pain."

As in response to his words, he let the link open a bit, causing a spiraling pain to increase in Harry's mind.

"So you going to kill me then?" Harry snarled, his hand too numb in fear to grab his wand. Oh why was he so damned slow, numb, stupid? He backed into the tree, getting as far away as he could.

Tom Riddle stepped forward, eyes boring with a lusting gush of temptation, thirst for death, and a harboring essence of glee. Then there was something else, a flash of it, as Harry moved in his baggy clothing, the fabric sagging off of his thin body like a spilt essence of extra skin. A flash of possibly sympathy.

If it was even there, that's flash, it disappeared quicker then it came. Replaced with the same look he always gave Potter, though it seemed offset. He stepped forward, his body shifting through the shadows of the looming tree, his body moving quicker then a snake's blink.

He was right next to the emerald eyed boy in a second, basking in the boy's fear. The boy tried to crane away but he couldn't, and try as he might, he couldn't reach his wand. Not that it matter, Tom Riddle had plucked it away, dropped it several feet away for good measure.

Then he tilted his snake face as he rubbed a finger down the boy's cheek, relishing in the boy's squirming pain.

"Not today Potter," the man whispered in his ear. "Today let's just say…your prolonged life shall be a mutual birthday present." He chuckled as the boy's start, and he drew away, his menacing smile breaking his face. He turned, to leave.

The temptation was lost. Another day, if he stayed so naïve.

"You owe me tea one day Potter, you can't possibly be that rude." Then with a crack with he gone, laughter of mirth cracking the park like a death bell. Harry collapsed against the tree, gasping in burning gulps of breath.

He couldn't believe it. To things flooding his mind. The main, ironically enough, being that he had gotten his answer to war…from the one man that was creating his own war.

He was so naïve.

A/N: R&R please.


	3. What was never seen

_Disclaimer: Don't Own, Don't Sue. _

_Chapter Three: Never Seen—_

The house creaked under his stalking footsteps as he walked down the hallways, everything craning over to him in perfect ease. The house was old and it smelt of mildew. No one had been down this hallway in a long time, down this house in a long time for that matter.

It wasn't dark, gloomy, and it carried no foreboding memories that created flashbacks of horrific track. Not that he expected anything dark. It was Harry Potter's small house wasn't it. The one thing he had managed to possess rightfully for himself before the final battle. Before his death.

Severus Snape didn't want to do this, but he knew it was time. Everyone had been pushing it away long enough. No one wanted to sort through Potter's things, no one wanted to go to that point of acknowledgement. That was why it was him, Professor Severus Snape, stalking down the hall to the dreadful task.

He wasn't overly fond of the boy, never had been. But his respect had grown. When he had come back to Hogwarts in his Sixth Year, he was different. He strived to become the best he could, he didn't push away from friends, and though he attempted Occulmency he never really got anywhere.

He got far enough though. He achieved what he wanted and that's what mattered in the end. Even if Snape didn't understand why controlling the link of pain to his scar was important. It somehow was.

He finally reached the last room, Harry Potter's study, where everything had collected dust, build up in little fortresses it seemed, piled upon everything that had been left in the same disarrayed form as it had been six months before when Harry rushed from the room, to the battle that would end all.

Snape curled his nose in disgust, not wanting to do this so much. Only his respect for the boy led him this far, nothing more. Sighing, he realize that to escape the tedious pain of sorting, he stalked over to the desk, figuring that that was the best place to start.

He had been right, it hadn't been fun.

That is until he reached the bottom piece of paper at the bottom of the last drawer, slipping it out carefully as he felt it crinkled from age. Interested, he looked at it, and realized that it was an article.

"Bloody Potter and his fame." Snape snarled, but he couldn't help but feel a pull to read the article. What was it about? Why had it never been published. Pushing his disgruntled thoughts, he forced himself to read it. Curiosity killed the cat didn't it?

At least he had nine lives.

_The brutal truth of The-Boy-Who-Lived. Everyone has their flaws and their triumphs. Over the years of Harry Potter's life, he has been ridiculed, claimed insane, worshipped, but beneath all this, and beneath the other lies that swamped him, he had a deeper story. The brutal truth. The kind that crushed people's ideals of Gods, Heroes, Legends. _

_Harry Potter was by no means a boy of luxury, having grown up in a cupboard under the stairs, but he cares not. That's not the truth to be spoken of. Nor that he only wished that everyone would forget who he was. No, the brutal truth of him and Tom Riddle, otherwise known as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The man that one day in the summer, not only spared Harry's life, but gave him the answer to something that would have otherwise destroyed him. _

_What is war? That was all he wanted to know and the only thing he couldn't figure out until a disguised Tom Riddle told him and then in turn spared his life. Why? Not even Harry knows that. _

_That's what leads to the brutal truth. The truth is what comes from the question of 'What does Harry expect from this war?' And the brutal truth of the Boy-Who-Lived. What he expected of this war?_

"_Not a damn thing beside useless death on both sides of the game." Came the reply. "I don't expect to live, and I don't expect many more to live."_

"_Then do you have a request?" the questioned was asked. Harry Potter went dazed at the question, as if a distant memory suddenly plagued his mind. He did not reveal what it was, but it could easily be assumed it dealt with the Riddle meeting of the summer. _

"_Request," he echoed for a moment. "I guess I would have to request…tea. Tea with Tom Riddle." To say shock followed that would be, I believe, an understatement. "Because I don't want him thinking I'm rude."_

_He later explained that You-Know-Who claimed him rude a while back. _

"_Do you expect He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to die?" it was the question that all wanted to ask the hero. And hear his response that the man would do so at his hand valiantly so. _

"_No," Harry responded. "That's just a hope." _

_The brutal truth of Harry Potter…he's not the Hero he want him to be, and he has no whims to being so. _

_Rita Skeeter. _

It was never published. Never seen by the eyes of the public. No one wanted to deal with the panic, the chaos, the loss of hope that it would have created.

But it was just enough for Harry to have it.

Snape was shocked to say in the least, but even in private he didn't show it. It was against his nature. He had taught the boy Occulmency on Dumbledore's whim, but never before had he seen this side of him.

He wished he had.

The respect he had suddenly gained by reading what he read, came a bit to late.

"Ah, what's done is done then," Snape rubbed his eye as he set the article onto the desk. "You won the battle nonetheless Potter, you prolonged the war, but you knew this already."

He stood up. This wasn't for him to do. It was for someone else, Remus Lupin perhaps. He wasn't close enough to the boy to do so.

Walking from the room, the article lying on the desk, he paused and glanced back. Only once, that was all that was needed. Then he would walk out, never to return, to memories or dreams. He had moved on.

Heroes were only brought on by the naïve. War was recognized by the wise.

Harry Potter was both, all combined in one article was that was never published.

THE END.

Please R&R


End file.
